How to Get a 6 Percent Raise That Is Not from Your Job

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

When was the last time your employer gave you a raise?

I was fortunate enough to get a nice raise from my employer earlier in the year, along with a few year end bonuses.

Guess what we did with the extra income? Yep … we are investing it!

Getting a raise, earning a year end bonus, even your tax return make great opportunities to invest.

You could use the extra income to invest in dividend stocks like our family. Or maybe use it to invest in a rental property? You could also use it to start your own online business.

It isn’t necessarily important what you invest in … just as long as you use it to grow your net worth.

Put that extra income to work for you earning more income. This step will help you to grow your net worth and put you on a path to financial independence.

Below you will find a scenario where my family recently got a raise. It wasn’t the raise from my job. We got this raise for doing absolutely nothing at all. The raise came from one of our dividend stocks we own.

The third opportunity is to invest in new shares of the stock … which we have not done with SYY. However, we have invested a bunch of new money in other stocks over the past 7 years.

Now in year #8 of owning SYY stock, the company recently announced a dividend increase … which means we are getting a raise!

We Got a 6.5% Raise

Sysco Corporation recently announced another dividend increase for next quarter.

We will receive $.33 in dividends for each share that we own … instead of $.31 last quarter.

This latest increase bumps the annual dividend for SYY up to $1.32 per share (from $1.24). That is a 6.5% increase!

I like to call these dividend increases a raise … because that is what they are.

It is an awesome feeling when one of the companies in our portfolio gives us a 6.5% raise. There are even times when we have received a double digit raise from a dividend increase.

How Much Extra Income?

Now … I will be quick to point out that another $.08 of income over 31+ shares of stock for a year is not that much. Actually $2.51 in extra income to be exact.

So why all the excitement about a 6.5% increase on that few of shares?

This latest increase is more of a reminder that our dividend income stream is constantly growing. On its own. Without any extra work.

And there is a very good chance that Sysco will give us another raise next year – probably close to 6%.

On top of that, the majority of stocks we own in our portfolio will provide shareholders a dividend increase this year. Some of them with double digit gains.

Since we only pick stocks that have an average 10 year dividend growth rate of 6% or higher … we can expect our income to increase by about that amount.

So if we were to earn $2,000 in dividend income this year (we are close but won’t get there), a 6% increase next year is $120.

Still not enough to retire early, but a much better return than most other investments.

Conclusion

One of the things I look forward to throughout the year are when companies announce dividend increases.

These dividend announcements are usually spread out throughout the year and are based on the company.

What this means is that our family gets many raises during the year from our dividend stocks.

Some are small, like this $2.51 increase in dividend income. Others are large and can be double digit increases.

As we continue to grow our portfolio and holdings, these annual “raises” from companies we own will begin to take off!

Do you look forward to getting annual raises from your dividend stocks?

Full Disclosure – At the time of this writing, we owned shares in the following stocks noted in this post – SYY. The material above is not a recommendation to buy. Please do your own research on a company before deciding to invest.